35053668-Empire-of-the-Soul-Paul-William-Roberts

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‘IF I DIDN’T WANT YOU TO LEAVE THIS PLACE’ That night he had arranged for us to watch old sixteen-millimetre home movies. The projector was set up beneath the stars in a courtyard, the screen a bare wall daubed with scaly whitewash. Our projectionist turned out to be the mad cousin. I did not like having him behind me. But, after burning several yards of film, then getting a sleeve caught in the machine’s teeth, he encountered another hitch: a power cut. No one seemed too upset, including the rajkumar, who confessed that he’d never seen for himself what the thousand rusty canisters of film, now piled up in a corner, contained. I was composing a diplomatic speech about having to leave – wondering if I’d ever be allowed to – when my host suddenly announced that he was driving to Madras the following day and could take me along. If I wanted to go, that is. I felt quite sad saying farewell to the little princesses, and they seemed sad to see me go. The thought of leaving them to spend the rest of their lives watching their world literally fall apart around them haunted me for months. I still think of them there, watching Bombay videos, reading the film magazines, dreaming. The last time I saw the rajkumar of Venkatagiri was in a restaurant in Bangalore. It was a warm December night, and he came over to my table, wearing a thick sweater, hunched and shivering, complaining about the appalling cold. We exchanged small talk that seemed oddly strained and formal. Perhaps he regretted letting me inside his life, telling me about his financial woes, his Tamil starlet? Then I noticed, far back at a corner table, the portly form of a shabbily elegant woman, staring around at the other diners with abject terror in her eyes. ‘Isn’t that your wife?’ I asked him. ‘Yes. Wife is there,’ he replied, as if he’d forgotten she was. ‘Is she all right?’ She didn’t look it. He grinned his cartoonishly deranged, toothy grin, his nose virtually spiking his chest, and his eyeballs almost squashed against the lenses of his glasses. Then he said, ‘She is little nervous, isn’t it? You see, this is first time ever she is travelling outside palace.’ Perhaps there was hope for those daughters of his after all? Rob Howard, a photographer friend of mine, visited Venkatagiri 245
EMPIRE OF THE SOUL in 1991. Dacoits had broken into the dharbhar hall a few years previously, stealing the entire menagerie of stuffed wildlife. Little else had changed, he said. I still wonder what those bandits did with that taxidermist’s nightmare, and why they wanted it. 246
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Empire of the Soul Journeys in Indi
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For Contance, my mother
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About the Author Paul William Rober
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Introduction I lived in India for a
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EMPIRE OF THE SOUL with the late Bh
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EMPIRE OF THE SOUL something ineffa
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PART ONE The Seventies
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‘WHO’S IN CHARGE HERE?’ 1 ‘
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‘WHO’S IN CHARGE HERE?’ ‘Ye
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‘WHO’S IN CHARGE HERE?’ the w
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‘WHO’S IN CHARGE HERE?’ To st
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‘MEDITATE MORE AND FIND OUT’ to
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‘MEDITATE MORE AND FIND OUT’ va
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‘MEDITATE MORE AND FIND OUT’ St
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‘MEDITATE MORE AND FIND OUT’ ac
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‘MEDITATE MORE AND FIND OUT’ co
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‘MEDITATE MORE AND FIND OUT’ su
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‘I AM ALWAYS WITH YOU’ With lit
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‘I AM ALWAYS WITH YOU’ small, r
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‘I AM ALWAYS WITH YOU’ and tenn
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‘I AM ALWAYS WITH YOU’ out for
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‘I AM ALWAYS WITH YOU’ populati
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‘I AM ALWAYS WITH YOU’ went cou
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‘I AM ALWAYS WITH YOU’ ‘squan
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‘I AM ALWAYS WITH YOU’ girl to
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‘I AM ALWAYS WITH YOU’ pravesh
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‘I AM ALWAYS WITH YOU’ occasion
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‘I AM ALWAYS WITH YOU’ Finally
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4 ‘Bhagavan Is Still with Us’ B
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‘BHAGAVAN IS STILL WITH US’ Ban
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‘BHAGAVAN IS STILL WITH US’ twe
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‘BHAGAVAN IS STILL WITH US’ hil
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‘BHAGAVAN IS STILL WITH US’ I a
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‘BHAGAVAN IS STILL WITH US’ tha
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‘BHAGAVAN IS STILL WITH US’ fif
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‘BHAGAVAN IS STILL WITH US’ sho
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‘BHAGAVAN IS STILL WITH US’ sti
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‘BHAGAVAN IS STILL WITH US’ swe
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‘BHAGAVAN IS STILL WITH US’ ‘
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‘BHAGAVAN IS STILL WITH US’ sho
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‘BHAGAVAN IS STILL WITH US’ ful
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‘BHAGAVAN IS STILL WITH US’ wal
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‘BHAGAVAN IS STILL WITH US’ thr
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‘BHAGAVAN IS STILL WITH US’ mus
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‘BHAGAVAN IS STILL WITH US’ the
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‘BHAGAVAN IS STILL WITH US’ I t
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‘BHAGAVAN IS STILL WITH US’ pol
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‘BHAGAVAN IS STILL WITH US’ hos
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‘BHAGAVAN IS STILL WITH US’ ‘
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‘A FLAME OF FAITH’ to legitimis
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‘A FLAME OF FAITH’ their estate
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‘A FLAME OF FAITH’ These shrine
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‘A FLAME OF FAITH’ preserved, X
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‘A FLAME OF FAITH’ The mutilati
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‘A FLAME OF FAITH’ converts in
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‘A FLAME OF FAITH’ Luiz Vaz de
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‘A FLAME OF FAITH’ I asked some
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‘A FLAME OF FAITH’ The sex seem
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‘A FLAME OF FAITH’ out cursory
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‘A FLAME OF FAITH’ bills and ca
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‘A FLAME OF FAITH’ ‘Ray!’ E
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‘A FLAME OF FAITH’ appear to bl
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‘A FLAME OF FAITH’ the pumping
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‘A FLAME OF FAITH’ with the man
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‘A FLAME OF FAITH’ We had to do
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‘WE SHOULD SHARE OUR SEX ENERGIES
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7 ‘I Like Too Much the Phfit-Phfi
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‘I LIKE TOO MUCH THE PHFIT-PHFIT
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Page 196 and 197: ‘I LIKE TOO MUCH THE PHFIT-PHFIT
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Page 250 and 251: Prologue My initial experience of t
Page 252 and 253: ‘MANY GHOST HERE’ high on its c
Page 254 and 255: ‘MANY GHOST HERE’ Soon the city
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‘THERE’S BLOODLETTING AS WE SPE
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11 ‘There’s Far Too Much Muck t
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‘THERE’S FAR TOO MUCH MUCK TO R
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12 ‘Europeans Are Coming to My Co
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‘EUROPEANS ARE COMING TO MY COUNT
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‘NO LIKE A-FEESH?’ told I’d b
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‘NO LIKE A-FEESH?’ industry, bu
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‘NO LIKE A-FEESH?’ Big Mamma Ma
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‘NO LIKE A-FEESH?’ ‘What?’
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‘NO LIKE A-FEESH?’ the cause. T
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‘NO LIKE A-FEESH?’ Om Asatomah
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‘NO LIKE A-FEESH?’ compound rec
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‘NO LIKE A-FEESH?’ the sky; gre
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‘NO LIKE A-FEESH?’ was surprise
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‘NO LIKE A-FEESH?’ newspaper an
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‘NO LIKE A-FEESH?’ provided a r
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‘IT IS NOT MY FIRE THAT BURN YOU
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EPILOGUE ‘Yes . . . she loved it
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Adrift in China by Simon Myers £7.
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